Editor’s note (competing interest): The author of this article is a member of the Oxbridge Honors Program.

The end of the 2025-2026 academic year will mark the end of William Jewell College’s Oxbridge Honors Program. The program was already barely clinging on, with admissions for new students closing in 2025 and the unique small-group tutorial-style courses that defined the program being eliminated that same year. The college’s financial exigency has also resulted in significant faculty turnover, including the loss of many Oxbridge professors. The current Oxbridge Senior Tutor and the final remaining Philosophy professor at Jewell, Dr. Elizabeth Sperry, is among that list, as she has been let go by Jewell after over 30 years at the college.

While the average Jewell student had little interaction with the Oxbridge program, for those students (including myself) who were fortunate enough to be selected for it, the program was truly a life-changing opportunity. With the program officially being closed by the college this year, I’ve taken some time to reflect on just what Oxbridge has meant for me. The Oxbridge Honors Program deserves to be remembered, and the lessons of its closure must be understood if we wish to preserve what makes Jewell unique.

Why Oxbridge Mattered

The Oxbridge Honors Program was much more than just a typical honors program. Oxbridge students were offered a thoroughly specialized and highly intensive form of education, one that didn’t fit into the standard structure of Jewell so much as was added on top. In their first semester, Oxbridgers would take the Introductory Seminar, an intense crash course on writing and thinking philosophically. Even now, at the conclusion of my senior year, the Oxbridge Intro Seminar remains arguably the most influential single course I have taken in my time at the college, and my experiences there continue to shape how I read, write, think, and live.

After completing that first seminar, each of the six Oxbridge majors would proceed into a planned-out list of specialized tutorials, a specialized and Oxbridge-exclusive class with a Jewell professor who specialized in that given subject. Every week, there would be an assigned list of readings from key thinkers and researchers in that field, and most weeks would include an essay assignment about that given reading. During the course meeting, the students would share their essays and would have to defend their ideas before their professor and their fellow students. These opportunities to not only write down my arguments about a given question but to defend them under often-intense scrutiny have been incredible for developing my ability to reason on the fly.

The pre-planned structure also permits Oxbridgers in the same major to develop a close academic camaraderie. For cases where multiple Oxbridgers share the same year and major, those students take all their tutorials together, letting them build rapport over time and become comfortable sharing their ideas and critiquing each other. The students I’ve shared tutorials with have greatly shaped my thinking on many key questions in the field and learning not just alongside them but also from them is an incredible feature of the program.

While Oxbridge provides students with many wonderful opportunities during their years on Jewell’s campus, the distinctive feature of the program was the study abroad opportunity in the junior year. As the name implies, the program primarily sent students to Oxford University, allowing students to join one of the oldest and most academically rigorous institutions on the planet.Jewell maintained relationships with eight Oxford colleges (Regents’ Park, Mansfield, Hertford, Lady Margaret Hall, St. Anne’s, St. Catherine’s, St. Edmund’s, and St. Peters’), and Oxbridge students could select from any of the options based on their interests, major, and location preferences.

I cannot speak for every Oxbridge student, but for me, that year abroad was the greatest highlight of my time in the program. It not only helped me grow academically but showed me a new way of learning and a new way of life. Before that year, I would never have considered moving to a new continent, but spending a year in Oxford proved to me that I want the next stage of my academic career, and of my life, to be in Europe. Without Oxbridge and the opportunities Jewell provided, I would never have found that next step forward.

What Went Wrong

Like all good things, the Oxbridge Program didn’t last forever. Identifying an exact date of its demise is tricky, but this year, in which the college officially informed students and faculty that Oxbridge would be closed and the role of Senior Tutor eliminated, is as good a date to select as any. The actual causes of its closure are various and complex; Oxbridge was a remarkable and unique program but by its nature it placed a huge number of financial and logistical challenges on the institution. Jewell is already suffering through a crisis wholly unrelated to Oxbridge, and the college’s reactions to that crisis have largely shifted its focus away from its more specialized programs; with all those institutional headwinds facing the program, its removal is sadly unsurprising.

The start of Oxbridge’s downfall was the loss of the Hall Family Foundation’s grant. The Hall Family Foundation, built from the fortune of the founders of Hallmark Cards, spent millions of dollars on the Oxbridge program, with their 2014 report listing a grant of over $1.2 million specifically to assist with program expansion between 2014 and 2017. These grants helped fund not only scholarships for Oxbridge students but also the Journey Grants that helped Oxbridgers fund their study abroad year in Oxford.

Unfortunately, this money, initially donated shortly after the program’s founding in 1982, has since run dry, and has left the Oxbridge program financially unsustainable. While Dr. Sperry made significant efforts to reinforce the financial position of the program through fundraising efforts, her efforts came at the same time as the College’s major fundraising push for the now-abandoned Link project, and later during the financial exigency. As such, Jewell did not prioritize the Oxbridge fundraising efforts, and without a significant benefactor for the program, Jewell was unable to continue providing the Oxbridge Journey Grants and other scholarships. This, along with the rising cost of an Oxford education in the first place (visiting student fees increased 34% between academic years 2019 and 2023), has significantly reduced the ability of the remaining Oxbridge classes to enjoy the program’s key distinctive feature.

The financial exigency at Jewell has impacted not only the funding of Oxbridge but also the educational experience of Oxbridge students at Jewell. As explored in the Hilltop Monitor back in spring of 2025, 45 faculty and staff members, including tenured faculty, were laid off during the initial declaration of exigency, and additional faculty members, including Dr. Sperry, will be leaving at the end of this academic year. The Oxbridge program’s tutorial system relied on having faculty available to teach those unique one-of-a-kind classes, and with the downsizing of Jewell’s faculty, there simply were not enough faculty members available to teach those tutorials.

As such, starting with the 2024/2025 academic year, Oxbridge tutorials were turned into “embedded tutorials,” where students would participate in a regular class and would meet occasionally with their professor on the side, either during office hours or at a scheduled meeting. These embedded tutorials did not count as an additional course on a professor’s workload, since the primary class meeting time was shared with another non-Oxbridge course, which meant that professors could be scheduled for their full course load and be required to teach an Oxbridge course in addition. This stopgap measure was functional enough for Oxbridge students, and the embedded tutorials I have taken at Jewell have certainly been enjoyable. However, the additional workload placed on professors added extra stress onto faculty members who had already been pushed to their limits.

With Jewell downsizing their professorial staff even further at the end of this academic year, and with the college currently working on their Reimagined Jewell restructuring plan, maintaining even the reduced vision of Oxbridge became incredibly untenable. With Jewell’s emphasis on “developing a flexible, adaptable curriculum” in the wake of their current challenges, the Oxbridge program, with its clearly defined four-year tutorial structure and closed cohorts, would become more of a hindrance than a benefit. Other unique programs, including Jewell Theatre and the Honors Institute for Critical Thinking, have also been casualties of Jewell’s restructuring, and it’s likely that an emphasis on flexibility and broad appeal was part of the decision to cut those programs as well as Oxbridge.

While the loss of Oxbridge may have been inevitable under the current pressures facing the college, that does not make its loss less sad. Oxbridge was not just an honors program that served a few students per year, it was a core aspect of the variety and the excellence that has made this college special. The loss of Oxbridge shows a Jewell that has given up on that which once made it unique, and whatever the future of the college may hold, those unique and meaningful programs should, and will, be missed.

Despite being one of the smallest liberal arts colleges in the country, William Jewell College has long been a well-regarded institution in the Kansas City area. This reputation is due not only to its high academic standards but also to its athletic prowess: nearly two-thirds of Jewell’s students participate in sports, making athletics a central part of student life and recruitment. 

However, the 2025-2026 academic year began under unusual circumstances. After years of financial difficulties, Jewell declared financial exigency during the 2024-2025 academic year, a rare and serious measure that reflects the severity of the challenges facing the institution. Although the administration emphasized that the situation remained manageable, the announcement plunged the university community into a state of heightened uncertainty.

For student-athletes, the impact is particularly pronounced. As the school was reevaluating financial priorities, the possibility of reshaping athletics and cutting specific programs seemed very real. As a result, the student athlete experience now oscillates between relative stability on the field and constant questions off it.

Jewell student athletes have always had to deal with busy schedules and high expectations, but in the spring semester of 2025, these pressures intensified. The athletic medical staff made a controversial proposal to increase student secondary insurance fees (special insurance for athletes designed to cover the remaining medical expenses related to sports injuries) by an additional $350 for student athletes. Although this fee was intended to protect players’ health and ensure they had medical coverage, it was perceived by many student athletes as an additional financial burden, particularly when combined with rising tuition fees and a temporary freeze on scholarships. In other words, no athlete will see their scholarship increased for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Compounding this unease, a wave of athletes transferred out of Jewell during the last semester. For those who remained, one question lingers at every practice and every game: What will athletics at Jewell look like next semester? Softball, for example, has faced one of the most visible challenges. The team’s head coach resigned at the end of last semester, leaving players in a precarious situation as the season approaches. However, the administration took an unusual and refreshing step: it directly involved the players in the interview process for hiring a new coach. Indeed, the players will have a say on the final hiring decision. This level of athlete involvement is rare at the university level and marks a significant shift toward greater student participation in program decisions.

Although the declaration of financial exigency cast a shadow over the athletic department, it also reignited crucial debates about transparency, resource allocation, and the future of sports at Jewell. The story of Jewell softball highlights the vulnerability of sports at small universities, where limited resources make athletic programs particularly sensitive to personnel changes and enrollment fluctuations. However, Jewell’s willingness to involve players in decision-making could also pave the way for new models of resilience.

For now, the semester seems too short to judge whether athletics at Jewell will emerge stronger or even more fragile. But what is clear is that the student-athlete experience at William Jewell is being reshaped, in real time, by the financial crossroads at which the university finds itself.

Photo by William Jewell College via LinkedIn.

Over the weekend of March 14, the William Jewell Speech and Debate team competed at the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence  (NPTE)and became the new national champions. Third years, Patrick Terry and Trent Dixon, spent the academic year competing against some of the most renowned debate teams in the country. For Terry and Dixon, their previous summer was filled with preparing to compete against the country’s best and they walked away as the first William Jewell National Champions since 2007. Both will be returning to the team next year as seniors and are hoping to look at an undefeated season. 

“We are hoping to maintain our NPTE championship,” Terry said.

They are wanting to make the community of debate more welcoming . Parliamentary is an impromptu style of debate that gives the competitor 30 minutes to prepare for the entire round. Once the round begins, the teams aren’t allowed to engage in research or search through their files. Therefore, the competitors have to be prepared for any possible outcome. This skill set can take months to years to master, and many debaters can still struggle with this version of the event. As stressful as this may seem for those just starting, Terry explained that the upperclassmen are always ready to help. 

“We love coaching just as much as competing,” Terry said. “It helps build a spirit of success.” 

With the season now at a close, the duo is now looking forward and focusing on what is to come. They have already started to concentrate more effort into the team building and structuring it for next year. William Jewell is continuing to find ways to support its students with the resources they need but the team’s passion has never stemmed from obtaining money. Terry described their feelings for debate as a “love for the game” and something that he wants to grow more in the upcoming months. 

“We have a dedicated team and a great staff,” Terry said.“It’s a great way to build a community.” 

As the team known as Jewell DT, or team Dixon and Terry, goes into its last year at the college, debate teams all across the country are ready to see what they accomplish next. With a winning streak hot on their heels, Terry and Dixon are excited to see what comes next for their debate careers. 

“We are hoping for an undefeated season next year,” Terry reiterated “That would be the dream.” 
The team plans to hold on to their coveted title earned with unwavering dedication in the year to come. With this spotlight being shone on the William Jewell Debate Team, the hope is that they can continue to grow and high school students will continue to come after hearing about the program. Head coach, Mason Remaley, will continue to lead the team next year and, through the dedication of Terry and Dixon, the college is able to add another national championship under its belt and expand its horizons once again.